My Own Private Utopia
by Moloko Vellocet
Summary: A story I wrote for English class. I based the setting on Idaho from "My Own Private Idaho", but since there's no section for that I put it here instead. Please R/R!


Many allusions to the Idaho of "My Own Private Idaho". However, everything else is my own work entirely. Please R/R!

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Utopia

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Mariko Lees

It had been such a long time between visits. I had not seen it for so long that the breeze felt foreign on my cheek. I caught the scent of wildflowers as the cool wind washed over me like a lulling wave, lapping elsewhere on a sandy beach, far away from here.

Here, it was my haven. My own private delight, far from cars and planes and trains and time. For this was the one place that never changed, no matter what.

The sun flashed angrily at me from its place in the cornflower-blue sky. I felt the hair on my head absorb the heat as I stood there, mesmerized by the beauty of such a place. It was not the cliched beauty of an exotic locale, such as a tropical island or a wild, untamed jungle…

It was the beauty of what was mine; what I had never had to hope for, never had to wish-upon-a-star for. I felt as if the sun, with its heat and its power had given me energy enough to fight a war single-handedly and be victorious; to challenge a long-dead knight like Lancelot or Gawain or even Arthur himself!

But, as I looked around myself, searching for the hidden adversary, I found none. Who, in this unnoticed land, filled with nothing but grass and dust and beauty would ever challenge me? I laughed out loud at the brazen thought.

Still energized, I impetuously raced down the hillocks, over the bumps and through the grasses, long and baked by the sun, in an impossible attempt to defeat myself. The brown and brittle lengths whipped my legs maliciously, propelling me forward with such momentum until I forgot it all and closed my eyes.

I never saw the rock over which I tripped, and fell clumsily to the sizzling tar of the road. I winced and withdrew my hands from the heat, but some part of me denied my eyes from opening. I did, however, allow myself to stand, and using my memory as an eye, I found the centre of the road, and stared out towards the horizon, searching for the spot I had originally staked my claim on, before I was aware of everything else around it, before I was old enough to remember, perhaps even before I was born.

As my eyes rested on that single spot, the crest of the road as it first came into sight, I saw the hazy heat tracing a ladder to the clouds above and felt a great relief pass through my body. I relaxed and let myself fall backwards to the hard ground, knowing that something would be there to catch me.

And I lay there, feeling the blisters form on my scorching back, not caring for the pain that was making my whole body ache.

I opened my eyes.

I saw the sky above me, the violet-blue you only ever saw _here,_ nowhere else I had ever noticed. White, fluffy clouds skidded through the blue, like surfboards slicing through clear water. I saw the telegraph poles, stretching up into the endless sky, the black umbilical wire connecting them, making them whole, pulling them onwards to the horizon.

I blinked.

And it was all gone. Faded, a memory of a place I had not truly seen in many years. Each time I see it in my mind I can never decided whether to cling to it or to let it cling to me. I never remember which I choose, either.

It is my rock, in this uncertain world of facts and figures, something which I am scared to leave behind. That spot on the long and winding road ahead, with the haze wisping into the sky - it is my destiny, one which I have no intention of ever arriving at. It is an impossible, conflicting, destructive utopia. 

No matter how hard things get, I know I can close my eyes and it all means nothing… this is a dangerous occupation, for sometimes I can never remember where reality ends and the dream begins. Perhaps what is infinitely sadder for me is that the more my life changes, the more it, my sanctuary, stays the same.

He hands me a sheet which needs my urgent attention. I lean back…

And close my eyes.


End file.
